Disjointed Portrayal
by Larania Drake
Summary: Edward comes across an old childhood portrait, and it brings up issues from Mustang's past that he does not quite want to confront.
1. Chapter 1

Disjointed Portrayal

Disclaimer: Fullmetal Alchemist does not belong to me and I make no money from this work of fanfiction at all.

A/N: I don't know what to call this one, this is bunny that occurred to me when trying to figure out how I would turn Mustang into a girl. Why do I want to turn him into a woman? Because, well, everyone writes Ed that way and while I think Ed with breasts is beautiful, I like variety. (And dammit, Ed with boobs… I just want to drool) It seriously messes with the power dynamic between them, which is why it is hard to write, and this is just… well, a way for it to work out. Sort of.

Warnings: Crack. Pure crack. Rated WTF

Pairings: Uh… well. I want it to be Ed and Roy. We'll see if I write more than this.

The picture had dropped, quite innocently, out of the old picture frame on the Colonel's desk when Edward picked it up. The picture that Edward had been looking at was one of the Colonel's staff- including the Colonel, Edward and Alphonse. The picture was of a rather strange poker game, with the Colonel smirking over his hand, Hawkeye looking exasperated and Ed yelling while everyone else laughed. Why someone had taken it, he had no idea- he figured it had to be Hughes. He had been about to put it down, when to his surprise, the old photograph had slide out the back quite easily- like it had recently been put back and not completely secured.

It was old, yellowed around the edges, and Ed snorted when he realized what it was. A picture of…

Wait, he didn't know those people.

He paused.

Yes he did.

No- that couldn't be… Edward's eyes narrowed, then widened, as he continued to examine the picture. There was only one person he knew for sure- and considering it was Hughes, who else could the other people be?

* * *

Colonel Roy Mustang slowly walked back to his office, yawning loudly and hunched over his second cup of coffee of the morning, mind flipping through the list of mundane, mind numbingly boring things that were the lot of a commissioned officer when they were not at war. It largely involved papers. Paperwork drowned his dreams , at times becoming a giant paper chimera that would assault him with ink and…

Well, let's say that it was better than some of his dreams of Ishbal, or any of the other memories he could never allow himself to forget.

So he shuffled his way down the hall, opening the door to his office, absently noted it was open (Oh, yes, he had a meeting with Fullmetal that day, he must be there already) and continued towards his desk. He was still so sleepy he didn't notice that Edward was completely silent, or if he was looking at…

…_that…_

The coffee took its seat first, on the corner of his desk before he dug for Ed's latest (list of damages) report. Roy must truly have been still sleepy because even then it didn't occur to him that Edward was being unusually silent. There had been times when the boy had kept his tongue, but that had been accompanied with the attempt to use fire alchemy with nothing but a glare.

Ah, there was the report. As the Colonel perused the words, he pursed his lips, thinking that it was time to bring out Lecture C (Destroying National Monuments is a Bad Idea), when he felt Edward looking at him. It was not the normal Edwardian expression of "get on with it, bastard" but…

"What's wrong?" he asked, looking up.

Edward looked down at the photo in his hands, and Mustang blinked. That looked like-

"So, um… Colonel… uh…"

The tone did not bode well, and it sent a cold chill running down Roy's spine.

"Um…"

Not well at all. Roy's eyes finally picked out the details of the photo- he could read the back of it, and the names of the subjects. The blood drained from his face.

"Uh, okay. So, Colonel… You're really- I mean, really… you're not… you're really… You were born…"

Mustang cleared his throat.

"You're a woman."

"I was."

Edward didn't look like he was feeling better than Mustang.

"I gotta sit down."

* * *

Edward looked down at the picture of two boys and one girl, turning it over to read the names on the back again before looking at the front. He scrutinized the picture for every detail, and he came, again, to the same conclusion. The little girl couldn't have been anyone but Roy Mustang. The boy had to be Riza Hawkeye. They looked almost identical, truly- the shape of the eyes and the nose, the color of the hair. Yet those children could have been long lost siblings, cousins, anyone…

Except for the addition of the only unchanged character- Maes Hughes. He stood a little taller than the other boy and girl, but of an age with them. More to the point, the body language was exactly the same. He knew how Colonel Mustang and First Lieutenant Hawkeye acted around each other- and how Hughes acted with both of them. That, more than anything, convinced his gut that these children were his superior officers.

His rational mind said no fuckin' way. That was human transmutation, something on a scale he had never heard of before… Medical alchemy that was beyond what he knew existed.

Still, his gut feeling was telling him that was exactly what he was looking at, and when he had confronted Mustang, he had not denied it.

The Colonel was still looking at him, pale as paper and blinking in bemused shock.

Ed was crossing his eyes, looking Mustang up and down, trying to imagine him with breasts. Breasts, dressed up like… like what, Psiren? He couldn't cross his eyes further.

"What? Why aren't going to deny it? Tell me this is- this is someone else? You aren't going to keep the truth from me, and fuck, how did this happen? How? Why? Dammit, I think I _want_ to believe that is your sister," Edward said, plaintively. "Aren't you afraid I'm going to go tell-" Okay, he wouldn't do that. Mustang had enough to blackmail him into the next millennium.

Mustang's face was still white, eyes wide and dilated, almost like he was going into shock. Any other time, for something less weird and Edward would have thought it was funny. It still almost was.

"I," Mustang recovered enough to pluck _that_ picture out of Ed's numb fingers. "I never thought anyone would find it," he muttered. He looked down at it, fingers stroking the edges fondly, yet his expression was completely unreadable. "I thought I had hidden it."

"It fell out of the frame," Edward snapped. "You're changing the subject. Mind answering my questions, before I yank down your pants so I can see if you have a dick?"

Mustang gave him a flat look, before standing up and unfastening his belt- giving Edward an eyeful of something he had never thought (and not really wanted) to see in his lifetime.

There was a smug smile on Mustang's face as he refastened his clothes, watching Edward's stunned and glazed over expression.

"Question answered?" Mustang replied; his tone only slightly acidic. "Whatever I may have been in the past, I most certainly am now male."

"What… the… hell…"

"Indeed. It's not really your business, Edward, despite the fact that you tend to make everything your business," Mustang went on, the tone of his voice and his expression slightly odd. Higher pitched, ambivalent- it was totally unlike his smug and superior tone. However, considering that Edward had found something out that… well, _personal_, it was hardly surprising.

"Just tell me how," Edward finally said, working enough spit back into his dry mouth to answer. He'd never known that Mustang was _that_ male to begin with… dammit, it wasn't fair. If the Colonel really hadn't started out life as a man then God really was a sadistic bastard.

Mustang's eyes had fixed back on the picture, lightly touching the faces there again. Edward struggled to find words for the expressions flickering across the older man's face, and he found one. _Wistful_, and there was the vaguest flavoring of regret.

"Before you go on one of your justice campaigns, Ed, I've been male most of my life now. I doubt you would ever really consider it, but before you get too deeply into it, I'm stuck this way. So is Hawkeye." Edward tried to understand the tightness in his voice, wondering why the hell anyone would start out by telling him-

Oh. Well, he did run into things without thinking about them, didn't he?

"Like I'd want to help you anyways," Edward muttered, looking away, but not before he caught that ambivalent expression cross Mustang's face again, regret and relief at once.

"Well, Ed, let me tell you: you are not the only stupid kid on earth," Mustang began, regaining his ground by making Edward sputter incoherently for a few moments. "A girl and her best friend should not try translating ancient Xingese texts while your dealing with your second period and your best friend is male and two years younger. You get cranky, you try something you shouldn't have to get even when you're teased, and wind up destroying the book in the process."

Edward felt anger surge through him- because he knew, just _knew_ that there was more to the story that Mustang wasn't telling him, opening his mouth to blister him with curses…

And stopped.

Mustang's face was blank- more blank than he was used to from the insufferable man. He was carefully hiding something. Old hurts, ambiguous feelings, showing his own vulnerabilities to someone who hated him so much had to be uncomfortable. Not that Edward felt all that comfortable dealing with this. He took a deep breath, and leveled a cooler glare at Mustang's face.

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"For what reason?" Mustang's voice was soft, losing the bickering edge he usually adopted unless he was making a certain point. "The book is gone, it won't help you find the Philosopher's Stone or get your brother's body back, and all it would be is a possible distraction, if not a complete embarrassment to me if it got out."

Ah, and there was the point. Edward's interest sharpened considerably. "You can't go getting rank if people knew you were female."

"_Was,_ Fullmetal, was. That's only part of it," and here his face shuttered so tightly that Edward wanted to smack him to pop the storm shutters open again. "I have other things I have to do and I can't let something like that stop me. I have to keep moving towards my goal."

Edward had heard those words before. The night Nina had died, Mustang had snapped those words out and reminded him of his chosen path. It tickled the back of his mind- what could Mustang have that outweighed everything else in your life?

Hell, what was so important that you wouldn't try to get back what you had lost?

Still, Mustang's eyes burned coldly for a moment and Edward shivered.

"You never want to become… Renee… again?" Edward asked, looking pointedly at the picture.

"I wouldn't even know where to begin even if I was given that chance, Fullmetal," the Colonel answered, scratching his chin. "All I know is this life, Edward, and it's all I can be."

"Yeah, and I believed all I could be was a cripple," Ed snarled, standing up, then sneered. "I won't tell. You don't have to worry about that." He bowed, stiffly, and left the room without finishing his report.

Mustang, out of Edward's sight, picked up the picture again and looked at it, letting the stream of confused and contradictory emotions have free reign on his face. Regrets? Everyone had regrets, but the loss of gender meant less than being a murderer.

And no woman had ever become Fuhrer, after all.

(The end? To be continued? I have no idea…)


	2. Chapter 2

Disjointed Portrayal II

Disclaimer: Fullmetal Alchemist does not belong to me and I make no money from this work of fanfiction at all.

Warning: I do not mean to offend anyone who is transsexual. This story is a plot that just sort of made itself and I wondered about writing it. If you get offended, do it for the relatively tame sequel, okay? This story is primarily about dealing with a bad situation until the end, then it has more romance.

Pairings: Ed and Roy eventually, and Roy and Riza if you squint.

Mustang pulled the key out, opening the old door to the comfortable and sparsely furnished apartment. Pulling his gloves off his hands, he looked knelt down to give Black Hayate a scratch behind the ears and was slobbered on in return.

Straightening his back, Roy looked down at his hands, thinking about what he was doing there.

It was a weekly ritual that Roy and Riza would meet, have dinner and practice. It was an act- there was no romantic feeling there, but a reminder of who they were. They would talk about anything and everything, dressed up and elegant, and think about old times even if they were never mentioned. It was an act they kept up for each other, but it was something that had helped them still.

Then Edward had found _that_ picture… and suddenly the familiar act wasn't able to soothe him.

His hands were long boned, elegant and smaller than most men's. There were calluses on the palms from where he ran the obstacle course with the rest of the men, from wearing rough gloves most of the time- but the nails were well kept, filed, clear and even. One of the few vanities he allowed himself was a pristine exterior…

Hayate grumbled, and Mustang smiled and patted him in apology. Riza wasn't there yet. Apparently she had a few errands to run before she came back to the apartment, and Mustang looked around.

It was tidy, of course. Hawkeye was rarely anything but. She was organized to the point of anal retentive and he didn't think he could cope without her there. There were almost no personal effects, except for a picture of a younger Riza, Roy and Hughes together in uniform in Ishbal.

Roy, as far as he knew, was the only person with a picture of Renee, Richard and Maes. Somehow that made things even more ironic.

There was a bed, a dresser, a small vanity with a collection of cosmetics and combs, and no personality at all.

Richard had liked dogs, hunting, guns and history. His father had bought him an antique pistol in a glass case when Renee was ten and it had stayed there for a week before it was taken out and used for shooting practice.

It had been Richard's, and then Riza's, most prized possession. It was nowhere in sight.

He had been to this apartment dozens, hundreds of times. He had stopped looking through the eyes of anyone but Roy Mustang, pushing the girl out of his mind.

"Damn Ed," he muttered, absently running his fingers through his hair. He'd been content to forget the past in light of the other things in his life. He'd forced the memories of who he had been away, and immersed himself in Roy Mustang, Colonel, playboy and Flame alchemist. It had been a life, a good life, even if it was plagued by guilt and ambition and babysitting a snot nosed brat who shed light over the darkest corners of a person's soul and made them see…

Roy caught sight of Riza's mirror again, narrowing his eyes and touching his face. The jaw wasn't heavy, it wasn't narrow either… His nose was still his nose, not large or small, and his eyebrows were still dark and arched over his eyes. He'd just shaved, and he rarely had to anyways, so he could imagine…

Sitting down in front of his reflection, he examined his face this way and that, and had picked up Riza's face powder brush and whisked it over his cheeks. He blinked when he realized what he was doing… and took a deep breath, picking up the eye shadow and smearing it over his lids. It didn't matter that the color- green- looked garish against his skin, or that his fingers were sloppy as they applied the stuff. He had no idea what he was doing as he picked up the mascara and tried to get the black fluid on to his lashes.

As he picked up the rouge, Roy paused to get a look at his reflection. On the whole, the makeup was amateur and crude, as if applied by a child. Yet it hinted, gave him an idea of what Renee might have looked like had she grown to adulthood, and… She'd been a kid. A stupid kid, and she would never exist again. She was Roy Mustang now.

He was Roy Mustang, a sinner… and Renee wasn't.

He covered his face with his hands, and sat there for a long time, not moving until he felt a hand on his shoulder.

"Roy?"

The voice was soft, familiar, and Riza.

"Yes?"

"What happened?"

Without removing his hands, he told her about Ed coming into his office and finding the old picture. That he had been so surprised he hadn't bothered to deny it… and that maybe, just maybe, the reason why he hadn't lied had been that he wanted Edward to understand. The kid was able to shake the world with his steps, and had been through so much. He had wanted someone else to understand, and to know. He knew Ed would never tell, and…

Gently Riza turned him around to face her, pulling down his hands. She didn't flinch, but her lips did tighten when she saw his clumsy attempts at applying makeup, before her gaze softened. She reached for a box of tissues.

"It's not a crime, Roy, to remember what happened. You were as much a victim as I was." Her tone was forgiving. "It's not a crime to regret. We both have them, and while I can't say I have the same guilt you do, I do have plenty of regrets." She signed, dabbing at his face, before reaching for the rouge he had dropped. She pulled out a blush and flicked it over his cheekbones. "I stayed true to myself, tried to live my life despite my gender, but you embraced being Roy Mustang. You wanted to forget." She smiled faintly. "Not that you aren't Roy, but you wanted to kill Renee off. But she's still alive in there."

Roy closed his eyes when Riza spread the lipstick over his mouth, dabbing carefully to fix a smudge.

"Look."

Mustang took the small hand mirror that Riza gave him, staring hard at the person in the mirror. A stranger peered back; she had pale skin and dark eyes and strong features. She was pretty.

She was an illusion.

Roy put the mirror face down on the vanity, refusing to look at the larger one to his back.

"Are we going out tonight?" he finally asked, and Riza ignored that his voice was more than a few octaves higher or that he had to clear his throat several times.

"I thought we might eat in."

Roy didn't look at her, as she offered him an out. He took it, standing stiffly and heading to the bathroom. The door closed with a note of finality and Riza wished she hadn't seen the tired, lost expression on Mustang's face.

When he stayed in there for over half an hour, water running, she never said a word.

To be continued.


End file.
